Everyone generally knows about piston and rotary engines, with many a flamewar having been waged over the pros and cons of each design. The “correct” answer is thus to combine both ...

Rotary engines, known for their unique design and compact size, have been predominantly associated with Mazda. However, engineers and automotive enthusiasts have experimented with incorporating these ...

Mazda's famous rotary engine finally made its big return last year, but it wasn't under the hood of a replacement for the RX-8. In fact, it wasn't even in a performance car at all. Instead, it served ...

The traditional piston engine has garnered the vast majority of attention and application in the internal combustion age, but there was another: the Wankel rotary engine. German engineer Felix Wankel ...

In theory, Wankel-style rotary internal combustion engines have many advantages: they ditch the cumbersome crankcase and piston design, replacing it with a simple, single-chamber design and a thick, ...

Invented by a German but perfected by the Japanese, the Wankel rotary engine is best-known for powering a slew of brilliant ...

Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. Peter Lyon is based in Tokyo and writes about the car industry. At the Japan Mobility Show two years ago, Mazda unveiled a ...